to watch / turkish dramas, man in the high castle, and pbs

Victoria on PBS. Season 1 just started with Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne. If you liked Netflix’s The Crown, you will like this. Stream for free online (although it won’t last forever).

I found Kurt Seyit ve Sura on Netflix. It’s a 40+ episode Turkish drama in Turkish or Spanish and English subtitles. It starts with Tsarist Russia and takes you through the end of the British occupation of Istanbul. Did Seyit and Sura’s love for each other survive? The two leads had great chemistry. It was quite dramatic and I was glad when I was done with it. (Warning: Turkish dramas are time consuming, especially since it’s hard to multi-task with subtitles!)

Amazon’s Man in the High Castle Season 2 dropped not too long ago. This show is set in the 1960s and takes you down the path of alternate history — what if the Axis Powers won WWII instead of the Allies. I like being able to binge through it but am sad that I need to wait a while for Season 3. Not enough to read the book though.

Magnificent Century was the first Turkish drama I watched on Netflix. It’s similar to the Chinese Empresses in the Palace (甄嬛傳/Zhen Huan Zhuan) which is also on Netflix in a few condensed episodes (watch it all on Youtube). It takes place inside the sultan’s harem of the Turkish palace circa 16th century. I only watched the first season — the rest are scattered on Youtube and to my relief, hard to find with English subtitles. Women in Turkish dramas like to faint.

Another PBS show – Secrets of the Six Wives – is based on the wives of Henry VIII. Historian Lucy Worsley steps in to narrate some scenes so it’s like a hybrid documentary. (If you like historical British documentaries, you may have seen her before.) Stream for free online (although it won’t last forever).